User engagement on
NGO Facebook pages

Effects of post sentiment measures over time

Nils Gustafsson & Nils Holmberg

Reserach questions

  • RQ1: How do Swedish nonprofits’ use of emotional expressions on Facebook change over time?
  • RQ2: What are the effects of emotional expressions on user engagement in Facebook posts from Swedish nonprofits?


  • ca 70 000 posts
  • from 125 pages (e.g. WHO)
  • time period of 2014-2019
  • downloaded using CrowdTangle

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Sentiment measures

  • ca 70 000 posts from 125 organizational pages
  • time period of 2014-2019
  • text pre-processing, emojis converted to text descriptions
  • sentiment analysis on all text content


  • date of posting
  • number of followers
  • post language

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Sentiment dictionary

  • content coded for sentiment using the AFINN dictionary
  • better results with machine learning ?
  • quantitative content analysis vs computational

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Sentiment analysis

  • content coded for sentiment using the AFINN dictionary
  • words and emojis assigned valence value of -5 to +5
  • valence indicate positive or negative sentiment (0 being neutral)
  • valence squared indicates intensity of sentiment

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Sentiment over time

  • relatera sina akademiska
  • tillämpa teorier inom
  • utveckla erfarenheter att

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Engagement and sentiment

  • relatera sina akademiska
  • tillämpa teorier inom
  • utveckla erfarenheter att

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Effects on engagement

  • relatera sina akademiska
  • tillämpa teorier inom
  • utveckla erfarenheter att

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Variables by organization type

  • relatera sina akademiska
  • tillämpa teorier inom
  • utveckla erfarenheter att

Engagement, mean over time

  • relatera sina akademiska
  • tillämpa teorier inom
  • utveckla erfarenheter att

Engagement, trend over time

  • relatera sina akademiska
  • tillämpa teorier inom
  • utveckla erfarenheter att

Engagement measures

engagement index, dependent variable

    1. e_index_mean: per post e_index average per month (“raw engagement scores”)
    1. e_index_mean_norm: normalized per organization values of e_index_mean (1. above)
    1. e_index_norm_mean: per post e_index normalized per organization average per month
    1. e_index_rel_mean: per post e_index relative to follower count average per month

Engagement trend by organization type

  • relatera sina akademiska
  • tillämpa teorier inom
  • utveckla erfarenheter att

Engagement measures by organization type

  • relatera sina akademiska
  • tillämpa teorier inom
  • utveckla erfarenheter att

Thanks!